B. Wholesalers are pimps. C. Manufacturers are slave drivers. IV. All wealth is the result of criminal conspiracy among: A. Jews. B. Japanese. C. Pirates in neckties on Wall Street.
That is also pretty much the way economics is understood by socialists. Perhaps the problems of socialism in this century have something to do with socialists stopping off for a snort before going to work running economies all over the world. Or maybe the socialists got fuddled by reading the works of professional economists. Here, for instance, is how economics is understood by followers of John Maynard Keynes: THE KEYNESIAN EQUATION—SHOWING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUTONOMOUS EXPENDITURES AND THE EQUILIBRIUM LEVEL OF INCOME Equilibrium level of income (Y) equals aggregate autonomous expenditures [Consumption (C) plus Investment (I) plus Government Expenditure (G) plus the total of Exports (X) minus Imports (M)] times 1 divided by the marginal propensity to save (mps) where mps equals 1 minus the marginal propensity to consume (mpc). Thus: It’s hard to imagine applying the above formula to any ordinary economic question, e.g., should I put my bonus in a certificate of deposit or buy new stereo speakers? When we look at economics in general terms, all of us—pirates in neckties, Albanians, Swedes, Cubans—are daunted. It’s worse than any tricycle from Santa. We feel as though we’re confronting an enormous piece of machinery that we can’t comprehend and don’t know how to operate. In fact, we feel like we’re being run through that machinery. We are wheat, rice, and corn being delivered to the Nabisco factory, and we’re going to come out the other end definitely toasted, possibly shredded, and, maybe, we hope, coated with sugar. Yet, although this is how we feel, this is not how we behave. When we engage in any specific economic activity—when we buy, sell, mooch, or work— each of us acts as if he knows what he’s doing. Even Fidel Castro does. In July 1997, Forbes magazine estimated Castro’s net worth to be $1.4 billion.
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